Weekend Wrap-Up - Jan. 13, 2014

1/13/2014

NCAA WEEKEND WRAP-UP by Glen McMicken

Many of the nation's collegiate teams opened the 2014 indoor season this weekend, highlighted by meets at Birmingham and Penn State.

2013 World Championships 4x400 gold medalist Arman Hall of Florida zipped to a 20.80 in the 200 at the UAB Blazer Invitational in Birmingham, and fellow Moscow teammate and Gator Cory McGee won the women's 800 in 2:07.47. Hall helped his squad to a 3:06.11 win in the 4x400, and the Florida women also took top honors with a 3:37.83.

Reigning World University Games pole vault gold medalist Sam Kendricks of Ole Miss topped 5.61m/18-4.75, and Florida State's James Harris, a 4x400 relay member at the Worlds last year, won the high jump with a clearance at 2.23/7-3.75.

In the rarely-run 4x200 relay, Penn State's women enjoyed the comforts of home in setting a collegiate best of 1:35.65 at the Penn State Relays with a team of Mahagony Jones, Dynasty McGee, Megan Osborne and Kiah Seymour.

Other noteworthy performances included a 6.60 in the 60 by Houston sophomore Leshon Collins at the UH Indoor Opener and a 7.65 in the 60H by Demoye Bogle of Ohio State at the Buckeye Classic.

SPEARMON STARTS 2014 ON TOP

Three-time world medalist and two-time Olympian Wallace Spearmon clocked his fastest indoor 200m time in the last six years, winning comfortably in a world-leading 20.68.

David E. Walker, the longtime track & field coach for the Eastern Tennessee State Buccaneers, died Saturday, Jan. 11, at the age of 82.

Walker trained three Olympians who competed for the Irish National Team, and he groomed 30 NCAA All-Americans among countless other collegiate track and cross country athletes.

Walker retired from his illustrious coaching career in 2012, and he gained consistent appreciation along the way. The ETSU track was named the David E. Walker Track in January of 1995, and he was inducted into the U.S. Track Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2003.

Olympian Ray Flynn said it best when he told the Johnson City Press, "He built it. It didn’t exist before him. His legacy lives on after him.”